Chapter 19
Remington was the first to recover.
"I believe that question falls under the heading of 'no longer your concern,' Miss Holt," he snapped. The fury in his eyes had her unconsciously taking a step back and lifting a hand to stroke the base of her throat.
Felicia's manicured brows lifted in unhidden interest. So Michael had at last parted ways with little Lisa. A slow, predatory smile lifted the woman's lips. Lacing an arm through his, she stepped in close.
"We're not going to let Lisa ruin our evening, now are we, darling?" she asked with a pretty little pout.
Laura barely glanced at the woman, although her stomach dropped to the vicinity of somewhere around her knees. It took every bit of her fortitude to remain in the room, when what she really wished to do was flee to her hotel and burrow herself under the covers until the raw gaping wound that had appeared where her heart had once dwelled healed, making breathing a certainty again, rather than hoped for. She forced her brown eyes to meet his again.
"We need to talk," she told him, despising herself a little for her unsteady voice.
"To the contrary, I believe you said all there was to say when last we spoke." She blinked at the hardness of his voice. This was a side to Remington she'd, on occasion, seen a glimpse of, but never had it been directed towards her. She knew how to handle peevish Remington, sulking Remington, insulted Remington, even injured Remington. But the man before her was all of those things, surrounded by a wall of rage.
"Do you think I'd be here if that were true?" she posed the question, quietly.
"Frankly, Miss Holt, I don't give a damn as to why you are here," he replied, bitingly.
"Mr. Steele—" Her words were suffocated by the ferocity of his glare.
"Choose a name, Miss Holt, any name. I've probably answered to it before…" His comment was a deliberate reference to their mutual past. "Any name, but that one, as we're both aware it was a name bestowed, but never earned." Ever the chameleon, he seemed to shrug off his anger in a heartbeat, as he turned to Felicia and lavished her with a charming smile while the tip of single finger traced her jaw. "Allow me to see you to your hotel?" he offered with a suggestive lift and drop of his brows, the performance far more for Laura's benefit that originating from any true interest. He had the satisfaction of watching the color drain from Laura's face.
"Have something wicked in mind, darling?" Felicia purred, casting a smug smile upon her former competition for Remington's attentions. His lips lifted in a crooked smile.
"I might," he hinted, flirtatiously. He nodded in the direction of the front door and held out a hand. "Shall we?" Felicia gladly walked ahead of him, his hand at her back in manner all too familiar to Laura. Before the couple turned down the hall toward the foyer, he stopped and leveled a pair of eyes snapping with anger upon Laura. "See to it that you're gone before I return."
A scant few second later, the front door could be heard opening, then closing behind the couple.
Oblivious to Daniel's presence, Laura lifted her head towards the ceiling, blinking her eyes furiously as she rubbed a hand against her stomach, trying to simultaneously will the threatening tears away and offer herself comfort. Finally, swallowing hard, she unconsciously nodded her head, then crossed the room to pick up her purse off the end table where she'd laid it down earlier.
"Thank you for the meal," she told Daniel, stoically, "And the conversation. I'll see myself out." She turned toward the front door, stilling after only a couple of steps when Daniel spoke.
"Odd, I've attributed any number of unattractive qualities to you over the years: Tedious, irksome, intractable, temperamental, bothersome, puritanical…" he mused, aloud. "But never, once, did I attribute to you cowardice." She spun on a heel to face him, the temperament he'd reference threatening to show itself in all its glory.
"Don't you get it, Daniel?' she addressed him. "You've won! He's back with you, as you've always wanted! Shouldn't you be dancing with joy?"
"If only it were as simple as that." He stepped into the kitchen to refresh his wine. "I won't deny I've waited a long time for this day to come," he admitted, as he returned to the living room. "A talent like Harry's is exceedingly rare, and there was a time we could have taken the world by storm," he gesticulated enthusiastically with a hand. "But, alas, his heart's no longer in the game." His eyes met hers and he raised a pointed brow at her, "It's with you."
"I'd come to believe it was," she answered stoically. "But every season comes to an end, and so, it seems, has ours. Goodnight, Mr. Chalmers." She again turned and began walking to the door, when once more his words froze her in place.
"He loves you, Laura." Her back stiffened, and her fists clenched at her sides at his words.
"That's awfully presumptuous of you, Mr. Chalmers. He's never said as much to me," she countered, stiffly.
"It would take a tremendous amount of courage for Harry to make such an admission… even to himself," Daniel reflected, sadly, as he trekked across the room to stare out at the water, glass of wine still in hand. "If I've done Harry an injustice, it was by allowing him to believe love is little more than a fallacy." She whirled to face the man.
"Why? To what end?" she demanded to know.
"Because I want nothing more for the boy than for him to be happy," he answered, honestly.
"And you thought the way to do that was to teach him love is a lie?" she asked, flabbergasted.
"Or crippling," he answered, sadly. "By the time I pulled him from the streets, he'd already spent a lifetime of being turned away by the very people who claimed to love him. In 'The Life', love is a luxury you cannot afford, as it will be used by others to manipulate you for their own means." He glanced at her, and simply said, "Anna," before continuing on. "And should you dare to defy the odds, to believe love just might be possible, after all, it can be cruelly torn from your hands, leaving you only a shell of the person you were before." She was shocked by the grief she saw flash across his face. Her face softened, and she tilted her head.
"Speaking from experience?" she quietly inquired. In the blink of an eye, his genial affect returned.
"A story for another day," he dismissed, as he approached her. Sitting down his wine glass on the end table, he took her hand in his. "You're a lovely young woman, Laura. If you love him, as I believe you do, stay and fight for him in a way no one, other than myself, has ever done before. Fight to keep him." He patted her hand, then released it and picked back up his glass of wine. She stared at him with lips parted by surprise.
"I never expected you, of all people, to encourage me to fight to bring him home." It was a stunning turn of events, given their history of competing for Mr. Steele/Harry.
"I want my boy to be happy," he reiterated his earlier statement. "As it happens, the only time in nearly twenty years that I've seen him truly content is during these past years when he was with you." She searched his faced at length, looking for any sign of insincerity and found none.
"Alright," she agreed, drawing out the word, emphasizing she was still not certain if staying was worth the risk of further angering Remington. Identifying that uncertainty for what it was, he decided to double-down, insuring that she wouldn't flee.
"Excellent. Then while we wait, I'll whip us up a spot of dessert while regaling you with tales of Harry's exploits as a youth."
Well, how could she resist that?
Remington accepted Felicia's offer of the key to her suite, like the gentleman Daniel had raised him to be. Unlocking the door, he pushed it open, then held out an arm indicating she should precede him. The view of the Mediterranean outside the French doors was dazzling, eliciting a low whistle of approval from him while she shrugged off her wrap and draped it over a chair.
"Exceptional accommodations, Felicia," he acknowledged.
"Aren't they, though?" she agreed. "I've had a run of good luck of late, and should Daniel and my little venture go as planned, I'll be able to enjoy the finer things for some time to come." She stepped to him and slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders. "And speaking of enjoyment…" She tangled her fingers in his hair, and urged his head downwards.
It was, in the end, he who initiated the kiss and he found little had changed over the years in the manner Felicia returned the kiss. Felicia enjoyed, demanded, an erotic edge to a kiss. She never needed to be coaxed to open to him… in fact, it was, as often as not, her tongue that was first to hint, to enter. All the while, her hands would be on the move, the kiss nothing more than a part of the foreplay.
One of her hands trailed over his chest, around his waist then downwards to stroke a cheek of his bum, as if proving his point for him.
With Felicia, it was all about the sex. Sex, for-nothing-but-the-pleasure-of-it, sex. No commitments. No promises of tomorrow. If she were unencumbered, as was he, and they happened to be in the same niche of the continent at the time? Well, a fast shag – or perhaps a few hours of shagging- then a kiss on the lips and a goodbye.
God, there were times he sorely missed those days of bedding a couple women a week, with the understanding it was sex, for-nothing-but-the-pleasure-of-it, sex. It had been so… simple… then.
He shrugged out of his jacket, and tossed it on a nearby chair, then covered her lips with his again.
Kissing Laura wasn't about sex. It was about needing to connect, about checking in – yes, there were still numerous obstacles and barriers to be overcome, but they both wished to continue to try. Kissing her was about finesse, tenderness, whisper soft caresses of her neck with a hand or her cheek with a thumb. Kissing her heated his blood, warmed his heart, and made some place deep within him ache from pure happiness.
He'd been surprised to find, after they'd crossed that line from friends to lovers, that he was worried the nature of those kisses might change, that they'd be more about sex, and less about the connection. He'd been delighted to discover they had not. If anything, those kisses had become all the richer, all the more sweet.
God, he missed kissing her, had once been able to while away a good portion of an afternoon, having a bit of a game with himself, seeing how often, and under how many different circumstances, he might get her into a clinch.
Angry with himself for his train of thought, his hands reached for his tie, tugging it off and tossing it onto the chair, Felicia's hands immediately going to the buttons of his shirt, releasing one after another. Brushing his shirt open, her hands appreciated his torso.
"Delicious, as ever," she hummed appreciatively as her mouth roamed over his shoulder and her hand journeyed further south to slip beneath the waistband of his pants and briefs. Lightly embracing her around her shoulders, his head fell backwards and his eyes closed when she took his burgeoning erection in hand.